National Jail Census, 1999 (ICPSR 3318)

Principal Investigator(s):
United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. Bureau of Justice Statistics

Summary:

The 1999 Census of Jails is the seventh in a series of data
collection efforts aimed at studying the nation's locally administered
jails. Previous censuses were conducted in 1970, 1972, 1978, 1983,
1988, and 1993. The 1999 census enumerated 3,365 locally administered
confinement facilities that held inmates beyond arraignment and were
staffed by municipal or county employees. Among these were 47
privately operated jails under contract for local governments and 42
regional jails that were operated for two or more jail authorities. In
addition, the census identified 11 facilities maintained by the
Federal Bureau of Prisons that functioned as jails. The nationwide
total of the number of jails in operation on June 30, 1999, was 3,376.
For purposes of this data collection, a local jail was defined as a
locally operated adult detention facility that receives individuals
pending arraignment and holds them awaiting trial, conviction, or
sentencing, readmits probation, parole, and bail-bond violators and
absconders, temporarily detains juveniles pending transfer to juvenile
authorities, holds mentally ill persons pending their movement to
appropriate health facilities, holds individuals for the military, for
protective custody, for contempt, and for the courts as witnesses,
releases convicted inmates to the community upon completion of
sentence, transfers inmates to federal, state, or other authorities,
houses inmates for federal, state, or other authorities because of
crowding of their facilities, relinquishes custody of temporary
detainees to juvenile and medical authorities, operates
community-based programs with day-reporting, home detention,
electronic monitoring, or other types of supervision, and holds
inmates sentenced to short terms. Variables include information on
jail population by legal status, age and sex of prisoners, maximum
sentence, admissions and releases, available services and programs,
structure and capacity, facility age and use of space, expenditure,
employment, staff information, and health issues, which include
statistics on drugs, AIDS, and tuberculosis.

The 1999 Census of Jails is the seventh in a series of data
collection efforts aimed at studying the nation's locally administered
jails. Previous censuses were conducted in 1970, 1972, 1978, 1983,
1988, and 1993. The 1999 census enumerated 3,365 locally administered
confinement facilities that held inmates beyond arraignment and were
staffed by municipal or county employees. Among these were 47
privately operated jails under contract for local governments and 42
regional jails that were operated for two or more jail authorities. In
addition, the census identified 11 facilities maintained by the
Federal Bureau of Prisons that functioned as jails. The nationwide
total of the number of jails in operation on June 30, 1999, was 3,376.
For purposes of this data collection, a local jail was defined as a
locally operated adult detention facility that receives individuals
pending arraignment and holds them awaiting trial, conviction, or
sentencing, readmits probation, parole, and bail-bond violators and
absconders, temporarily detains juveniles pending transfer to juvenile
authorities, holds mentally ill persons pending their movement to
appropriate health facilities, holds individuals for the military, for
protective custody, for contempt, and for the courts as witnesses,
releases convicted inmates to the community upon completion of
sentence, transfers inmates to federal, state, or other authorities,
houses inmates for federal, state, or other authorities because of
crowding of their facilities, relinquishes custody of temporary
detainees to juvenile and medical authorities, operates
community-based programs with day-reporting, home detention,
electronic monitoring, or other types of supervision, and holds
inmates sentenced to short terms. Variables include information on
jail population by legal status, age and sex of prisoners, maximum
sentence, admissions and releases, available services and programs,
structure and capacity, facility age and use of space, expenditure,
employment, staff information, and health issues, which include
statistics on drugs, AIDS, and tuberculosis.

Guidelines for Applying for Restricted Data

Before you begin an application you will need the following information to complete the form

General Requirements:

appointment at research institution; appointment must be under the jurisdiction of the receiving institution

degree requirements (possibly doctorate)

Must be submitted:

project description

IRB approval

approved security plan

roster of research and IT staff who can access or view the data or computer where data are hosted.

confidentiality pledges for all people on roster

Some require:

CV's

A downloadable version of data for this study is available however, certain identifying information in the downloadable version may have been masked or edited to protect respondent privacy. Additional data not included in the downloadable version are available in a restricted version of this data collection. For more information about the differences between the downloadable data and the restricted data for this study, please refer to the codebook notes section of the PDF codebook. Users interested in obtaining restricted data must complete and sign a Restricted Data Use Agreement, describe the research project and data protection plan, and obtain IRB approval or notice of exemption for their research.

Any public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public.
Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.

Dataset(s)

Study Description

Citation

United States Department of Justice. Bureau of Justice Statistics. National Jail Census, 1999. ICPSR03318-v3. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2009-07-09. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR03318.v3

Methodology

Data Source:

official records

Extent of Processing: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of
disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major
statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to
these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

Standardized missing values.

Performed recodes and/or calculated derived variables.

Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

Version(s)

Original ICPSR Release: 2002-06-07

Version History:

2009-07-09 Data modifications for disclosure risk have been made.
The following variables were masked using -1 as the code and "Masked" as the value label: V333 MALE ILLNESS/NATURAL CAUSES, V335 FEMALE ILLNESS/NATURAL CAUSES,
V337 MALE AIDS, V339 FEMALE AIDS, V341 MALE SUICIDE,
V343 FEMALE SUICIDE,V345 MALE HOMICIDE BY OTHER INMATE,V347 FEMALE HOMICIDE BY OTHER INMATE,
V349 MALE OTHER HOMICIDE,V351 FEMALE OTHER HOMICIDE, V354 MALE OTHER CAUSES OF INMATE DEATH,
and V356 FEMALE OTHER CAUSES OF INMATE DEATH.
The following variable was masked using MASKED as the value:
V353 OTHER CAUSES OF INMATE DEATH SPECIFY.
The following variables were masked by assigning a blank (" ") for all cases: V16p NAME OF THE ENTITY THAT OWNS THIS FACILI
and V17p NAME OF THE ENTITY THAT OPERATES THIS FA.

2005-11-04 On 2005-03-14 new files were added to one
or more datasets. These files included additional setup files as well
as one or more of the following: SAS program, SAS transport, SPSS portable,
and Stata system files. The metadata record was revised 2005-11-04 to
reflect these additions.

2003-12-02 The principal investigator supplied a revised
dataset, which was fully processed and released as the second edition
of the collection. Corresponding changes were made to the codebook and
data definition statements.

2002-08-16 The first part of Appendix A, a statistical program,
was deleted from the codebook.